Cow

end of the day daylight subsiding into the trees lights coming on in the milking barns as somewhere out in the yard some ants are tucking in their aphids for the night behind hydrangea leaves or in their stanchions underground they have been bred for it the smaller brain serving the larger brain the cows eat so we will eat we guarantee digestion is the only work they do heads down tails up for the maximum yield they won’t have sex they get some grain some salt they get their shots no catamounts no wolves we fertilize the fields we put up bales of hay oblivious one breached the fence last week the neighbors stopped to shoo it back a girl held out a handful of grass calling the cow as you would a dog no dice so what if she recoiled to see me burst from the house with an axe I held it by the blade I tapped with the handle where the steaks come from like the one I serve my friend he is a water sign who likes to lurk in the plural solitude of Zen retreat to calm his mind but when it’s done what he needs I think is something truly free of mind a slab of earth by way of cow by way of fire the surface charred the juices running pink and red on the white plate